and Cost / Benefit Analysis

Historically, we’ve counted "hits" on a Web sites (or number of visitors) as a means of determining if the Web site is successful. However, this is not enough information to allow you to make decisions about your investment in . Think of the following things as a possible means to track your investment.

• Web Tracking "hits" versus "requests" - a lot of people talk about "hits" because it is fairly easy to measure. However, site traffic is hardly profitable!
  
  
• Hits from unique individuals are slightly better, but more important are requests made to the Web site (information requests, purchases, etc).  Think of these requests as customer contacts in a traditional sales environment.
  
  
• Number of e-mail messages (count them). If you separate these according to those that led to a sale, you have a clearer picture.
  
  
• Types and numbers of transactions offer several ways to measure.  The number of transactions is a weak indicator; revenue turned is better; while profit margins of products sold can give you an idea of which ones are worth attempting online or not.
  
  
• Coded coupon/ad responses offer the ability to track where they come from and give you an idea of sales generated offline based on your Web site.

Return on Investment

When it comes to costs involved in tracking, you can consider the difficulty involved in obtaining that information:

• Easiest - the cost of your computers, network equipment, contracts for Internet service (those things that you have clearly definable bills for).

• Intermediate - costs that can “creep up” on you., such as on-going costs of Web development, new software, supplies, unpredictable time charges if you’re hiring it done (maintenance and repair charges for equipment are easy to track but not to predict), and charges for depreciation or replacement funds for equipment.

• Hardest - all the time that you invest in this process is perhaps the most difficult to track.  Whether it is time spent in planning, learning new technologies, learning software or hardware, time communicating with contract technical people, etc.